Storm Chasers

Jacob Van LunenWednesday, November 02, 2011

elcome to Modern Week here on MagicTheGathering.com! Modern is a Constructed format wherein all core sets from Eighth Edition forward and all blocks from Mirrodin (the original Mirrodin) forward are legal. Pro Tour Philadelphia offered us our first glimpse of the new Modern format. The Pro Tour was dominated by blisteringly fast combo decks that intended to win on the second, third, or fourth turns of the game. The combo-centric nature of the format was quickly remedied by a big set of bannings.

Wizards wants to make Modern less of a combo-oriented format. This allows creature-based strategies to race combo decks and supports a more play-friendly environment.

I'm a Johnny/Spike, though. I want to dome my opponent for huge amounts of damage on the third turn. It's gotten pretty difficult to do so with the new set of bannings. Today, I'm going to offer up another round of Pyromancer strategies. This time, we'll be arming ourselves with an often overlooked enchantment from Future Sight, Pyromancer's Swath.

Today, we're going to try to build a Swathstorm deck. Swathstorm is an archetype that came about with the original printing of Pyromancer's Swath. The deck intends to cast a lot of spells on a single turn, cast Pyromancer's Swath, and then follow it up with a Grapeshot with enough storm to finish off the opponent.

The deck is normally going to go off on the fourth turn, but it's often able to finish the game as early as the third turn. Modern players have very painful mana bases, especially in the earlier turns of the game. Cracking a Zendikar fetch land and grabbing a Ravnica dual land untapped is 3 damage worth of fixing. These small amounts of damage may not seem like a huge deal, but it becomes significantly easier to storm for the win each time your opponent's life total reaches a lower denomination of 3.

Manamorphose is perfect for this type of strategy. It helps fix our mana when we're going off and it generates storm in the interim. There are many games where you might be forced to attempt your combo without all the necessary pieces in hand. Cards like Manamorphose and the other cantrips will greatly increase our chances of "getting there" on a key turn.

Gitaxian Probe is similar to Manamorphose in many ways. It essentially draws you a card for free, generating storm and digging us deeper through our library. Gitaxian Probe is especially good because it helps us decide whether or not it's safe to go for our big turn. I like to lead with Gitaxian Probe when able on my key turn. A free look at my opponent's hand will give me all the information I need to decide whether or not it's safe to go off.

Remand is often enough of a speed bump for your opponent that you're able to make it to your key turn and combo them out. Remand gains a lot of additional value when you consider its ability to return a Grapeshot to your hand with the storm trigger on the stack. Sometimes you'll fire off a Grapeshot with five storm copies and have an opponent at 13. In that situation, you can cast Remand targeting your Grapeshot, the storm trigger will still resolve and you'll be able to fire off that same Grapeshot with seven copies for exact damage.

Magma Jet is a solid removal spell that gives us outs to problematic cards like Ethersworn Canonist. Magma Jet also puts our opponent to 18 from 20. This makes a huge difference when we have a Pyromancer's Swath. The difference between six spells (including the Grapeshot) and seven spells is pretty huge. Magma Jet also cracks people down to 15 from 17 (the actual starting life total in most Modern decks thanks to fetch lands and Ravnica duals). Lightning Bolt may be better in this slot, but I'm wary of missing out on card manipulation when we've just lost Ponder and Preordain.

The deck, excluding lands, should be very easy to acquire. Pyromancer's Swath is the only rare in the deck, and it's not hard to get. The lands may be a bit harder to track down, but they're necessary to the deck's ability to function. I'd include another Steam Vents and at least one more Island-based fetch land if I had no budget requirement here. The mana base I used here shouldn't be too prohibitive even for the most frugal deck builders.

Quick Aside: This deck's immunity to Gaddock Teeg is quite deadly against a lot of opponents. Players will probably realize that we're a storm combo deck when we have red and blue mana available and we're casting Serum Visions, Peer Through Depths, and Sleight of Hand. Most combo decks have a lot of trouble dealing with Gaddock Teeg, and an opponent will probably go out of the way to find the legendary Kithkin.

My draws went pretty well here, but the deck is pretty consistent and turn two to four wins are the norm. Once the Modern Pro Tour Qualifier season rolls around a lot of players may have decks that are well equipped to fight Grapeshots with cards like Leyline of Sanctity in their sideboards.

In short, I feel like the deck is probably the premier combo deck of the format even without the Ponders or Preordains. The bannings made combo less consistent and probably made the format more player-friendly. Combo certainly isn't dead, and I'm interested to see where this deck could go. Perhaps Past in Flames could find a home here?

Shoot me an email or hit the forums with any questions or comments on the deck.